


Sealed

by prozacplease



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Gross, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Nausea, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Self-Induced Vomiting, Sickfic, Triggers, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prozacplease/pseuds/prozacplease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time Steve finds Bucky in the HYDRA lab, he's already been exposed to substances that will seal their fate for the next seventy years. Some of said substances don't agree with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sealed

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Star Spangled Exchange on Tumblr.

Steve heard Bucky before he saw him. A soft muttering that broke off into a whimper. Steve almost didn’t hear it over the sound of his own heavy breathing, the panicked rush of his mind. Much of the HYDRA facility was dark. So dark, in fact, that Steve nearly overlooked one of the side rooms as he ran down a hallway. But he heard noises coming from there.

The room was some sort of medical lab, appearing all the more sinister with the lights turned off. There were tables littered with wicked stainless steel tools that glimmered dimly in the moonlight shining in the windows.

All of the exam tables were empty except for one. Steve ran over to the man lying on the table on the other side of the room. Conflicting waves of horror and relief washed over Steve when he saw it was Bucky. He almost didn’t recognize him.

Bucky was shaking against the tight leather straps that bound him to the table. He was covered in grime and sweat. Steve was so stricken by the sight of him that he couldn’t even speak. Bucky’s eyes were glassy and half-lidded, but they immediately fell on Steve when he came into view. It was hard to focus with the light trails that followed everything when his eyes moved. The way the walls crawled like they were alive was distracting.

“Stevie,” Bucky said softly.

He would have reached up to try and touch him if he wasn’t immobilized. This was the best hallucination yet. He just didn’t care for the way Steve was looking at him.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. “We gotta get out of here.”

Steve yanked on the restraints and broke the buckles that fastened them to the table. He helped Bucky to his feet and pulled him directly into a big hug.

“Jesus, you’re alive,” Steve said, squeezing him tight.

Bucky took an unsteady step back, keeping hold of Steve’s huge upper arms and looking him up and down. “What the hell happened to you? You’re—”

Steve grabbed Bucky’s wrist, practically dragging him out of the lab. “I’ll explain later,” he said.

Most of the time Steve was just pulling him along. Other times, like when they were clambering up a ladder, Steve would push him ahead. Bucky didn’t mind. The floors seemed to be moving underneath him, making him second guess each step and stumble. He saw things out of the corner of his eye, but nothing was there when he turned his head.

They kept climbing higher and higher on the endless catwalks that criss-crossed above the factory’s main floor. Bucky tried to not look down, but it was hard when walking on metal grates. The floor jumped up at him occasionally and he had to cling to the railings for support.

“C’mon!” Steve cried.

He was worried about Bucky, who was pale and breathing far too hard. But he was managing to keep up, and that was paramount at this point. They could worry about everything else when they were safe.

“Steve—”

He turned and saw Bucky crouched down low, hanging onto the guardrail of the catwalk they were running across.

“What’s the matter?” Steve asked. “Here, I can carry you.”

“I’m gonna puke,” Bucky moaned. The end of his sentence was punctuated by a gag.

It felt forceful enough to bring up whatever was making him so sick, however, nothing came out. Maybe it was another hallucination, but he could swear his guts were suddenly full of stuff he needed to throw up.

Steve grabbed Bucky under the arms and pulled him to his feet like he was nothing.

“I know you’re messed up,” he said. “But we gotta go. Hang in there.”

Bucky felt heavy and hot inside as he willed himself to follow Steve. The urge to gag was gone, but he was still gripped by nausea. That sickness was intermixed with fear when he and Steve were halted by Zola and Schmidt on the other side of the catwalk.

Steve knew how ill Bucky was and instinctively put himself in the middle to separate his friend from those who had hurt him. The way Zola was staring at Bucky made Steve want to kill him.

 

Once they were outside, Bucky picked up a HYDRA rifle and was shooting off rounds right alongside Steve and the other escapees. Never mind the frightening psychedelic trips he was experiencing in transience. He was lucid enough to pick off HYDRA operatives with his expert marksmanship. However, he stayed close to Steve as they left the facility and marched into the night.

It was soon obvious that Bucky was not the only one to be suffering from the effects of HYDRA’s experimentation. Still others had been hurt during the escape.

Everyone was weary, but Steve and a few others decided that it would be best to continue on to the camp. They had no way to treat injuries out in the woods.

Bucky was tripping over tree roots and not able to keep up with those who were walking, especially not Steve. He was still badly hallucinating. The trees that lined the road seemed to be leaning over and closing in on them. He was randomly startled by things that no one else could see.

“Just let me carry you,” Steve said after about the fifth time Bucky jumped in fright. “It’s okay.”

“No way. What if I throw up on you?” Bucky asked.

“You’re not gonna throw up on me,” Steve said.

Bucky continued to protest, even as Steve picked him up and slung him over his broad shoulder. No one seemed to be laughing or staring, so maybe it really was okay.

Steve was worried, so worried. He kept his arms wrapped around Bucky’s legs to keep him from slipping. Steve noted how Bucky’s hips and ribs were jabbing him as he walked. He supposed feeding their test subjects was not high on HYDRA’s list of priorities.

Bucky just closed his eyes and let his head hang down. His vision was crawling with unsettling black edges. He was still suspicious that this was all an extended vivid hallucination. Maybe he was still on that table, shaking and talking to no one.

“Steve, what happened to you?” he asked weakly. “You’re different.”

“The government turned me into a sort of super soldier,” Steve said, deciding to keep it simple. “I’m still the same person, just bigger, faster, and stronger.”

“Wild,” Bucky said. “I saw a Captain America poster in a bar and I thought he looked a lot like you. Not a coincidence, huh?”

He could feel something creeping up his throat and he wanted nothing more than to puke it up, but didn’t think he could miss Steve if he tried.

“No, I’m Captain America,” Steve said, feeling a little sheepish about it.

They talked intermittently throughout the night. Bucky fell asleep a few times and woke up flailing and yelling about things like men ripping their faces off. He came close to racking Steve in the middle of one of his hallucinatory fits, but Steve didn’t let go. He was afraid that if he set Bucky down he would take off into the forest or try to hurt himself.

By the time the sun started to rise, Bucky seemed to be through the worst of it. But his mind felt like a newly sharpened blade, senses too heightened and thoughts coming too fast. He could hear the birds singing in the forest with a sort of clarity that he’d never experienced. At first he thought he could smell Steve’s sweat, but he realized it was deeper than that. He could smell his blood.

“You gotta put me down,” Bucky said when he came to that realization.

“Are you sure? We’ve still got a couple miles to go,” Steve said.

“Now, right now,” Bucky demanded, already trying to slide off Steve’s shoulder.

He felt better standing on solid ground, but the shift in position upset his stomach again. The nausea was compounded by a sort of deep-set pain. He forced himself to keep walking, to keep in step with Steve. Especially when they finally arrived at the camp.

The sudden swarm of people greeting them was overwhelming to Bucky. He’d never been bothered by crowds until this very moment and it was all rather frightening.

Steve seemed to be revelling in the attention, if not a bit embarrassed by it. Bucky didn’t begrudge him that, but couldn’t stand to be caught in the swell for another second. It was a fight to escape the whoops and hollers, the rough handshakes and well-meant back slaps.

Steve didn’t see Bucky slip out of the throng and was nervous when he couldn’t find him anywhere. It took him nearly an hour to get away from Colonel Phillips and Peggy, and then another twenty minutes of searching to find Bucky. No one seemed to know where he was.

He’d already been through two of the three infirmary tents and was entering the third when a nurse stopped him. She was carrying an armful of bloody sheets and bandages.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No, but I’m looking for Sergeant Barnes,” Steve said.

“Haven’t seen him. You need to leave,” she said and practically shoved past him.

Steve looked around. The large tent was divided into two areas. On one side, a team of medics and a field surgeon were working on someone. The other side was lined with cots, some occupied and some not. Bucky was lying on one of them.

He was tightly curled up on his side, arms folded around his midsection. His eyes were closed, but he opened them when he heard someone approach on the dirt floor. There was an empty metal bucket sitting on the ground and someone had hastily thrown a scratchy army blanket over him.

Steve sat down on the empty cot next to him, unsure of what to even do or say. He leaned over and adjusted the blanket, straightening it out and making sure it covered Bucky completely. He was tucking it around his neck when he finally spoke.

“I wondered where you went,” Steve said. “I was looking for you.”

“Just been layin’ here,” Bucky said.

He felt like whatever was pumping through his veins earlier had left his system. But there was still the nausea, the disconcerting cramping in his abdomen. He’d never felt anything like it.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked.

“Stomach hurts,” Bucky said. “I feel like I need to throw up, but I can’t.”

Steve looked around. The only nurse in the tent was handing instruments to the field surgeon.

“Has anyone even looked at you?” he asked.

“Just a nurse,” Bucky said. He pulled back the blanket and unfolded one of his arms to reveal the hot water bottle he was holding against himself. “She gave me this like I’m on the fuckin’ rag.”

“Is it helping, though?” Steve asked.

Bucky pulled the blanket under his chin again. “Yeah,” he said. “And it’s fine. There are a lot of guys who are hurt worse than me. I don’t even think I’m hurt. Just sick.”

Steve wasn’t even sure he wanted to ask, but he needed to know. “What happened to you there?”

“Spent most of my time in a cage with the rest of the guys,” Bucky said. “They drug men into that lab, one by one. None of them ever came back. So when they took me out, I figured that was it. But I guess got lucky.”

Bucky sat up with considerable effort, dog tags jangling as he did so. He noted that he felt full but couldn’t recall eating in the past few days. That thought alone was enough to make him start gagging again, but he focused on the story he was telling. He rolled up the sleeves of his ratty green shirt and showed Steve his arms.

“That’s what they did to me for most of the time I was on that table,” he said.

The insides of his elbows were badly bruised, the skin dotted with pinpricks of dried blood. He’d lost track of how many injections and infusions he’d been given, but couldn’t forget about all the men that stood by while he hallucinated or seized or lost consciousness.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve said softly. “I am so sorry.”

Bucky just shook his head. It wasn’t Steve’s fault.

“Then yesterday—at least I think it was yesterday—they put a tube down my throat.”

Bucky remembered that it was more like a hose, made of thick orange rubber. Someone had held his head while a metal jaw separator was placed between his front teeth to prevent him from clamping down on the hose.

“Don’t try to bite. It will break your teeth,” one of the men said in a thick German accent. It was the first time anyone had spoken English to him in the lab.

He struggled against the restraints as the end of the hose was slicked with petroleum jelly. He couldn’t speak with the separator in his mouth, but managed to make a noise in frantic protest.

“Relax, relax,” the same man said with a derisive laugh. “We’re just testing some organ preservatives for our new cryosleep program. Very exciting, no?”

Bucky knew there was no reason for this explanation other than pure cruelty. The jumble of words made little sense to him and he didn’t have time to sort it out before they began.

The tube was threaded inside his mouth and down his throat, pushed forcefully whenever it refused to advance. Bucky gagged and choked on the hose repeatedly but it was merely a useless and painful reflex that he couldn’t control. It hurt and breathing was difficult.

“ _Wir haben den Magen erreicht_ ,” the man guiding the hose said.

Bucky couldn’t see what all was being done on the other end of the hose, but he suddenly felt cold inside and violently ill. They removed the hose quickly, dragging out thick, blood-tinged spit with it. Bucky coughed uncontrollably and everyone seemed surprised that he was still alive. The men murmured in wonder and wrote on charts and Bucky didn’t like that one bit.

Bucky spared Steve from most of the details and explained it in general terms. Despite glossing over the most horrific parts, Steve was still nearly in tears.

“So they put something inside you?” he asked hesitantly.

Bucky laid on his back, throwing an arm across his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just hurts so bad.”

Steve got up and knelt next to Bucky’s cot. He put his hand on Bucky’s sweaty forehead, smoothing back his ruffled hair. He was scared and didn’t know what to do.

“Just try and get comfortable,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Bucky rolled onto his side with a moan, folding up again. He kneaded his abdomen with one hand, the rapidly cooling hot water bottle forgotten.

“Does that help?” Steve asked.

“A little,” Bucky said, looking all sorts of embarrassed and unsettled.

“Here.”

Bucky winced when Steve slid his hand under his own, pressing and rubbing just below his ribs. He gasped sharply. It hurt, but he let Steve do it. He felt a strange sort of relief from being touched by Steve, who was gentle but desperate to relieve the pain.

“Is this okay?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded and was about to reply when bile crawled up his throat. He sat up on his elbow and retched over the edge of the cot, but nothing came up. Bucky kicked the blanket off his legs and heaved himself into a sitting position again, this time with his feet on the floor. Steve saw that he was still completely dressed. Bucky hadn’t even taken his jump boots off before lying down.

Bucky leaned over the bucket and gagged again, willing himself to vomit. He could feel it there—whatever it was—but it would not come up his throat.

Steve sat on the edge of the cot next to Bucky, feeling a little nauseous himself. He was a sympathetic vomiter and knew that when Bucky finally threw up, he might too. But he wasn’t going to leave.

Bucky doubled over and placed his head on his knees. Steve rubbed his back in wide, sweeping arcs. Bucky groaned in pain and distress.

“Do you want me to get someone?” Steve asked. He’d never heard Bucky make noise like that before.

But Bucky said no, voice muffled by his legs. He was desperate to vomit—to get what was in him _out_. He sat up and tried to force himself to be sick. The strain of it made the veins in his neck and forehead stand out.

Steve was turning to call someone over when Bucky stuck two fingers in his mouth, pressing against that spot just behind the downward slope of his tongue. He didn’t even have his fingers out of the back of his throat before the contents of his stomach were coming up.

The milky liquid that spilled into the bucket was thick and ropy. Bucky choked on it as it got caught in his throat. It didn’t smell like vomit and it didn’t taste like it either, but his throat and nose still burned. Some of it was hanging out of his nose and mouth and he threw up again.

Steve kept a hand on Bucky’s back but turned away at the sight of him vomiting. The fact that it was unlike anything he’d ever seen before just made it worse. The sound of more liquid falling in the bucket made Steve gag himself and he covered his mouth with the back of his hand.

Bucky was coughing and spitting and panting. He retched again, but now there was nothing to throw up. He felt completely gutted and empty.

“What the fuck _is_ that?” Bucky asked, mildly horrified. “Jesus, _Jesus_.”

“I can’t even look,” Steve said, feeling the pre-vomit saliva coming on. “Is there blood or something?”

“No,” Bucky said. He was freaked out, but couldn’t deny the relief he felt. “It’s just… I don’t think it’s puke. It’s like—”

Steve stood up and left the tent in a hurry. Bucky could hear him retching right outside. He stood and moved the bucket away from the cots to a place where a nurse would see it. Let them deal with it. He didn’t want Steve to see it when he came back and, frankly, he didn’t want to look at it anymore either. He didn’t exactly know what he had thrown up, but he knew that HYDRA had put it in him.

Bucky found a towel and wiped his mouth and nose off with it, feeling disgusting. He was nearly crushed by the urge to shower, shave, and change his clothes. But he was tired. So tired. It took all his effort to walk the short distance back over to his cot and lie down on it. He was burrowing under the heavy wool blanket when Steve came back in the tent.

“Looking a little green around the gills,” Bucky said when Steve sat down on the empty cot again.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “You know me. Are you okay, then?”

“I don’t know, but I feel a lot better,” Bucky said. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Now that you’re here and you’re safe? Yeah, I am.”

Bucky’s mouth split into a grin, the first smile that he’d felt creep across his face in a long time. He reached his hand out from under the blanket and Steve held it. He rubbed the top of Bucky’s hand with the pad of his thumb.

“Thanks for saving me, Captain America,” Bucky said. “You’re my hero.”

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Come hang out with me on Tumblr!](http://www.iainkillsrobots.tumblr.com)
> 
> ♥ Comments are always appreciated. ♥


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